March 19, 2008: Five Years of War and Occupation in Iraq
This month marks the fifth year of the US occupation of Iraq. Five years ago, our government invaded Iraq and began an assault of horrific violence that continues to this day. The implications of this invasion and violence will long outlive the imperialist occupation, however long the US demands it continue.
Most of us are already familiar with the numbers, even if we can’t really grasp their enormity and significance: likely more than a million Iraqis killed, 4,295 “coalition forces” dead, and around 4 million Iraqi refugees.
Of course, the very fact that we know the precise number of “coalition force” casualties (overwhelming US) indicates who is in power, who dictates what is and isn’t relevant. This is no surprise—no one doubts the overwhelming hegemony of violence enjoyed by the US military and the political and corporate juggernaut that supports it. Likewise, no one should be surprised that the US possesses a monopoly on the depiction, via mass media, of reality as regards its current experiment in occupation.
The US’s other occupation, that of Palestine, is indication enough of how “reality” will be dictated by the state voice-piece that is the corporate media.
While all of the above is very nice to point out, with all of its numbers and explanations, the truly important is still just some insubstantial unreality that we fail to connect with: the people and lives so intimately and unalterably affected by this war and occupation. How can we express the true reality of this? We want to talk about the real “cost” of war when we can’t even get away from quantifying lives and relationships. As we all know, we do not see our own existences as numbers, nor the existences of those close to us (our partners, parents, siblings, family, friends). We don’t perceive these lives as tools to either support or discredit political actions and paradigms. Instead, they are an intimate and vital part of our lives, real and necessary components of living a life of meaning and import.
Until we are able to understand the lives of others in this same sense—to know that every one of the individuals killed as a result of this country’s war and occupation existed in a beautiful web of interconnected significance and meaning—we will continually allow these actions of imperialism and murder to occur. In fact, they do not “occur:” they are perpetrated, they are done by people. As such, they are not some incomprehensible phenomenon, as unpredictable and uncontrollable as a tidal wave or forest fire. They are premeditated, constructed, and designed actions with specific intended goals. Until we stop these actions, we are implicated in both their implementation and their outcomes.
So, the US occupation of Iraq enters its sixth year. For the last five years, as well as during the lead up to the invasion, we have failed to stop the predictable outcomes of imperialism. This is not surprising. We have failed to create a society in which these actions are unallowable and truly reprehensible. Instead we continue to recreate a system in which occupation, war, and mass murder are just an expected, albeit unloved, occurrence—a necessity to keep the gears well oiled and the machinery functioning. To stop the occupation we must stop the machine. And to stop the machine requires that we both attack it and stop participating in it, while creating something else that truly embraces love and autonomy over fear and domination.
Most of us are already familiar with the numbers, even if we can’t really grasp their enormity and significance: likely more than a million Iraqis killed, 4,295 “coalition forces” dead, and around 4 million Iraqi refugees.
Of course, the very fact that we know the precise number of “coalition force” casualties (overwhelming US) indicates who is in power, who dictates what is and isn’t relevant. This is no surprise—no one doubts the overwhelming hegemony of violence enjoyed by the US military and the political and corporate juggernaut that supports it. Likewise, no one should be surprised that the US possesses a monopoly on the depiction, via mass media, of reality as regards its current experiment in occupation.
The US’s other occupation, that of Palestine, is indication enough of how “reality” will be dictated by the state voice-piece that is the corporate media.
While all of the above is very nice to point out, with all of its numbers and explanations, the truly important is still just some insubstantial unreality that we fail to connect with: the people and lives so intimately and unalterably affected by this war and occupation. How can we express the true reality of this? We want to talk about the real “cost” of war when we can’t even get away from quantifying lives and relationships. As we all know, we do not see our own existences as numbers, nor the existences of those close to us (our partners, parents, siblings, family, friends). We don’t perceive these lives as tools to either support or discredit political actions and paradigms. Instead, they are an intimate and vital part of our lives, real and necessary components of living a life of meaning and import.
Until we are able to understand the lives of others in this same sense—to know that every one of the individuals killed as a result of this country’s war and occupation existed in a beautiful web of interconnected significance and meaning—we will continually allow these actions of imperialism and murder to occur. In fact, they do not “occur:” they are perpetrated, they are done by people. As such, they are not some incomprehensible phenomenon, as unpredictable and uncontrollable as a tidal wave or forest fire. They are premeditated, constructed, and designed actions with specific intended goals. Until we stop these actions, we are implicated in both their implementation and their outcomes.
So, the US occupation of Iraq enters its sixth year. For the last five years, as well as during the lead up to the invasion, we have failed to stop the predictable outcomes of imperialism. This is not surprising. We have failed to create a society in which these actions are unallowable and truly reprehensible. Instead we continue to recreate a system in which occupation, war, and mass murder are just an expected, albeit unloved, occurrence—a necessity to keep the gears well oiled and the machinery functioning. To stop the occupation we must stop the machine. And to stop the machine requires that we both attack it and stop participating in it, while creating something else that truly embraces love and autonomy over fear and domination.
posted by matt iv at 11:58 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home